Email Migration

Kent State University is excited to announce that we are moving student email from Google Gmail to Microsoft 365. This will provide you access to the same email platform as faculty and academic support staff. Additionally, Microsoft 365 is a mail platform common among many employers, making you more marketable for employment after graduation and improves the Universities ability to protect you from cyberthreats.

The Google Workspace environment (Gmail, Google Drive, etc.) is NOT being eliminated.  You can continue to use the tools and features within, but when it comes to e-mail, M365 will serve as your e-mail provider.

Why is Kent State switching email from Gmail to the Microsoft 365 “Exchange” environment?

• Establishes a common e-mail environment. Currently students use a different email platform than faculty and staff. That leads to issues with calendaring, address books, and spam filtering. Having all students, faculty, and staff on the same email platform will allow students to make appointments and collaborate more easily with faculty and staff in M365.
• Enables a more seamless experience with Canvas. Canvas, our learning management system, integrates easily with the M365 suite of tools and applications, especially OneDrive.  
• Incorporates industry leading security standards. Major improvements to phishing and spam detection within e-mail messages as well as increased account monitoring to better protect you and your personal information.
• Workforce readiness with experience in the M365 suite. Microsoft provides an industry standard platform that will translate better to workplace readiness as it is found in over 90% of Fortune 500 businesses.